It's impossible to stop people of offing themselves. What are they going to do, force feed him? And even if they do that. He can stop eating and the cycle begins all over again.
If they are determined, they can commit suicide.
But if it becomes illegal, it might deter a few.
I'd be interested to know whether law/policy impacts behaviour in the way we think it would.
If I look at drug policy, Canada and USA have 12-13% marijuana users, where it is illegal...not even decriminalized with the exception of Colorado and Washington. This can bring potentially harsh penalties including prison.
Then you have a place like the Netherlands, where they have about 5% usage, and there is no legal punishment at all.
There is more to encouraging and discouraging behaviour in society outside of policy/law enforcement.
There is something called the law of unintended consequences. Basically states that every time you do something, outcomes that you do not expect may come to happen.
In the topic at hand, we have a law which was passed that made a particular religious practice illegal by making it the equivalent of suicide.
While it’s obvious that this ruling was made in order to try to avoid suicides, it’s possible that a perverse result gets to happen. Instead of people avoiding suicide you may have people opting to use a knife or a gun.
So instead of a decline of suicides you may get the opposite effect.
I'm not sure if the consequence is unintended. I don't think that the primary reason for strict drug policy is to decrease drug use in society. It was threatening industries like alcohol, tobacco, pharmaceutical, cotton, petroleum based products, etc. It also allowed law enforcement to put minorities in prison. The same idiot that primed alcohol prohibition eventually failed and then moved onto drugs (Henry Anslinger).
In the same way, if the government wants to minimize suicides, then they need to address the main issue, which is - what is deteriorating the mental health of people in today's society and how can we help them? If the best we can do is say "that's illegal dude", it's not really addressing anything. Suicide is still taboo topic in North America and is not discussed. Suicide is not even reported in the media. When I used to take the subway to work, and someone would jump in front of the train, there would be an announcement saying that there is a delay due to "signalling issues". We can't keep treating people like retarded children and expect a positive change.
